Tag: Solomon’s Temple

Show Summary: Tradition and preconceived notions are hard to overcome. And nowhere is this more true than Jerusalem and the location of the Jewish Temple — the one built by Solomon and later rebuilt and expanded by Herod. Scholars and centuries of tradition say the location of the Jewish Temple was the Temple Mount where the Dome of the Rock stands. What if they’re all wrong?

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We’re joined this week by David Sielaff, the Director of the Associates for Scriptural Knowledge (ASK). They were founded by Dr. Ernest L Martin, who was one of the leading proponents of the true site of the Jewish Temple being located in the original City of David. Dr Martin was the author of The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot.

Whether it’s politics or or the media or academia or even religion, each of these have their “experts.” And the experts are right and everyone else is wrong. Or at least not as right. And there is an incredible amount of arrogance that comes with that puffed up sense of self, which in turn creates a mental roadblock that prevents experts from seeing alternate possibilities.

The rock under the Dome of the Rock. Does this look like a threshing floor to you?An actual ancient threshing floor. What David bought would have looked something like this.

Take the original location of the Jewish Temple. The one built by Solomon and then later rebuilt and greatly expanded by Herod the Great. The Bible says that King David bought some property on which to build the Temple: the threshing floor floor of a Jebusite (the Jebusites had settled Jerusalem before David conquered it). Centuries of tradition place it on the so called “Temple Mount” where the Dome of the Rock now stands.

But threshing floors were flat. And smooth. Because farmers would use shovels and rakes to toss the grain up into the air to separate the grain from the chaff, you’d want a smooth surface to make the shoveling part easier. Look at the pictures here. Does the rock under the Dome look at all like it could have been a threshing floor?

Location of the Jewish Temple

The Jews would like to rebuild their Temple. But the Dome blocks them from doing so because the Dome of the Rock is the third holiest site in Islam and tearing it down would start the third world war.

But what if all those experts are wrong? What if the original location of the Jewish temple wasn’t on the Dome of the Rock at all?

Tune in this week to find out why all those “experts” could be incredibly wrong—and just think what that means for the Jewish people.

Links Mentioned

David Sielaff’s organization: Associates for Scriptural Knowledge – askelm.com. There is a ton of good information here not only on the location of the Jewish Temple but lots more on the intertwining of history, science, and scripture

Academics’ Advocate

Siphon aqueducts were first used at the palace of Knossos on Crete. Founded in 7,000 BC, the first palace was built in 1,900 BC, about 1000 years before Solomon. It was abandoned between 1380–1100BC (more on Knossos)

Cassius Dio on Temple and Bar Kocha revolte: “At Jerusalem, Hadrian founded a city in place of the one which had been razed to the ground, naming it Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of the [Jewish] god, he raised a new temple to Jupiter. This brought on a war of no slight importance nor of brief duration.”

Just for Fun

Picture of what the temple site would have looked like, with Fortress Antonia